


Let Me Save You For Once

by letthesongtakeflight



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, title may change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6648775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letthesongtakeflight/pseuds/letthesongtakeflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky saves Natasha for a change, because saving each other is what they do best.</p><p>A fix-it to the "Broken Arrow" arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Save You For Once

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the ballet fight scene in issue 9 of Winter Soldier.

_“I try to imagine my life without her, and all I see is pain and heartbreak. But at least I’ll be the only one feeling it.” -James Buchanan Barnes._

* * *

Bucky dodges Leo’s blow and moves in to land one of his own. The ex-Soviet agent slips out of the way and Bucky’s fist barely brushes his flank. It feels almost familiar and as Bucky’s body goes into autodrive, blocking Leo’s moves and delivering his own, memories flash through his mind. Training Leonid Novokov in Soviet Russia; pushing the younger agent harder through drills and exercises; sparring with him. Out of the three sleeper agents he trained, Leo was the one he pushed the hardest – the one in whom he saw the most potential to serve the Motherland. Back when that was important.

A gunshot rings below them and Bucky glances down to see Agent Sitwell fire at Natasha. His heart catches in his throat and in his distracted moment Leo strikes a square blow across his jaw. But he sees Natasha dodge the bullet unharmed and he pushes himself up with a roundhouse kick at Leo. There’s a crack and a thud from below but Bucky doesn’t let that distract him again. He sees Leo’s guard drop as he advances – that’s always been his weakness, something that he must know as well as Bucky does.

Leo never had a chance, not with Bucky as good as he is. He must have known it. So why did he even come along? Bucky wonders, but wastes no time in cracking his metal elbow against Leo’s jaw. As his former student picks himself up from the floor, spitting blood, Bucky realizes the answer before Leo starts to say, “Oh, good. You’re so good,” he purrs, sounding pleased even though he is defeated in combat. “But now it’s time to choose, isn’t’ it?” He looks up then and Bucky is taken aback by the malice in his eyes. “Do you take me in? Or do you save her from _that_?"

That’s when Bucky looks down for the first time since Sitwell missed his shot – and sees Natasha holding the SHIELD agent at gunpoint. He curses internally. He was right. Leo came along for the show. To see Natasha kill Sitwell – or Bucky. And he knows that there’s really only one choice he can make that he won’t regret. He glares vehemently at Leo – who has blood splattered down his chin and is grinning in triumph like the Devil himself – and leaps off the walkway. He grabs a rope and swings down. His boots connect with Natasha’s body, and her bullet connects with his. 

He half expected this, but the pain still shocks through him, enough for him to let go of the rope and land in a crumpled heap, groaning. He hears a gasp and raises himself off the floor, ready to fight Natasha. Only he doesn’t have to. She’s picking herself up from where she landed after he kicked her, one hand against her forehead like she’s fighting off a headache, her eyes watering.

“Natasha?” 

“… James?” She sounds dazed, but she blinks and the last of the confused haze leaves her eyes. “James!” she cries and rushes towards him.

“Oh, thank God,” Bucky breathes in relief, letting himself fall back to the floor. The bullet wound is deeper than he expected it to be, and he’s lost enough blood to feel a more than little dizzy.

Natasha skids to a halt and drops down in front of him, her ballet tights making her slide a little on the wooden floorboards of the stage. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she babbles as she cradles him in her lap. Up close he can see that she’s trembling, which becomes more apparent when she sees the blood that’s flowing from his abdomen and pooling around him. She presses down hard on the bullet wound, an instinctive reflex from a lifetime of treating her own wounds, which no amount of brainwashing could possibly erase. The pressure makes the pain worse and Bucky groans again, his vision swimming before he focuses on Natasha’s face. Tears are leaking from her eyes down her cheeks in rivulets, and drops cling to her lashes. Like dewdrops on a spiderweb, he thinks, the cliché image the only thing that comes to mind in his half-conscious state. 

“Natasha –“ he says, his voice hoarse as he reaches up to cradle her cheek.

“Oh God, I’ve killed you,” she gasps as her fingers turn red with blood.

“I’m not dead yet,” he manages to say.

“I’m so sorry, James,” she says again. Bucky tries to tell her that it’s not her fault, that she didn’t know what she was doing, that Leo had brainwashed her. But he’s slipping away, he can’t make his tongue and lips move nor his vocal cords make sound, and his vision is becoming blurry. And then the med team is pulling Natasha away – or are they pulling _him_  away? – and the last thing he's aware of is her tear-streaked face before he slips into darkness.

 

* * *

There’s something warm next to him. Something warm, and soft, and smelling vaguely of some spice he can’t name. He shifts and finds that said warm, soft, spice-scented thing is lying on his left, nestled between his metal arm and his body. His eyes open slowly; it’s like lead weights are holding down his eyelids and he feels kind of numb. Somewhere in his brain he recognizes this numb feeling as sedatives. 

His eyes take a moment to adjust to the dim room, longer than they would take usually because of whatever drug’s in his system. Natasha is curled up against him like a cat, hands tucked against her chest. One of her wrists is in a bandage, evidence of the sprain Sitwell gave her. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is even, each exhale breezing across his side.

Bucky’s heart softens at the sight of her, looking tiny and vulnerable in sleep. Without really thinking, he reaches his right arm across his body and runs his fingers along the contours of her face, wanting to feel her skin beneath his fingertips.

Her eyes fly open, and the instinctive alarm in them softening to something akin to relief. “Good, you’re awake.” He can detect the concern behind her seemingly blasé words.

“I could say the same thing about you, Sleeping Beauty,” he teases, trailing the crook of his finger along the curve of her cheek.

Despite his light tone, a subtle crease appears in her forehead as her brows pull down. She takes his hand and kisses his fingertips. “I was getting worried,” she confesses.

The acknowledgement of caring, which she considers a weakness, finds its mark in his heart as sure as one of Clint’s arrows. “You know I’ve walked away from worse."

She looks up at him and he can see the ocean of unspoken fear in her eyes. “You were in surgery for six hours, James. Unconscious for more."

“That’s the painkillers,” he reassures her. But now that he’s aware of the pain in his abdomen, even after the best treatment in the world, at SHIELD’s medical facilities. He’s sure it’s not the kind of wound you just get up and walk away from.

“James…” Guilt weighs down like an anchor in the glittering sea of her eyes. “I could’ve – I almost _killed_  you.” Her voice breaks and he’s aware of her trembling.

“It’s okay, shh,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her despite the pain the movement causes. There is a tight band across his chest that has nothing to do with his physical injuries. He just wants to hold her and calm her, to protect her from herself. He cradles her against his chest, her petite frame fitting snugly against his broad one. She was made for him, he knows, and he for her. She had been a child who had never known love, and he had been more machine than man who had forgotten love. But something about her – her fire, her defiance, her wit and, strangely, her innocence – had called to that dormant part of him and woken up his humanity. Then, blindly groping in the darkness, with her as his light, he was reminded of what love was while teaching her what it meant. She saved him, and now… “I saved you for a change, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?” Natasha looks up at him, her long lashes prominent with the tears that cling to them. 

“Leo,” Bucky says. “Something he said…” She’s still looking at him uncomprehendingly so he continues, “he asked me, ‘do you save her from that?’ I thought he meant you shooting Sitwell, but that would only hurt you if you realized what you’d done.” He exhales, and meets her gaze. “That meant that you would _wake up_  if you killed him. Or me, I suppose that extends to. That’s how he was going to hurt us. He wanted you to wake up to see me die."

She blinks, comprehension dawning in her eyes. “So that’s why I came back. The first thing I knew was that you were bleeding out and it was my bullet in you.” She clutches him tighter, as though to tell herself that he was here and alive.

“I’m still breathing, Natalia,” he says softly, trailing his fingers through her hair. 

A smile ghosts onto her face. “Thank God you are. But you know who I wish would _stop_  breathing?” There’s a spark in her eye now, a defiance and veiled anger that makes her look more like herself. "Leo Novokov."

Bucky smiles crookedly and the tightness around his lungs relaxes. “Then let’s go fix that.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this a while ago after re-reading Ed Brubacker's Winter Soldier series YET AGAIN (because nothing else quite hurts me in the same way).  
> There isn't enough Buckynat out there and if their relationship is even hinted at in Civil War... oh man I'm going to die and go to Buckynat heaven.


End file.
